Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

Monopoly politics and its unsurprising effects 55them legal liability of any sort. Although usually debated in high-sounding, publicinterest rhetoric, these laws (and subsequent enabling regulations) are understoodto have great impact in limiting the ability of challengers to mount seriouscampaigns. 26Ways Federal campaign laws limit competitionThe ways Federal and state election and campaign-finance laws limit competitionare varied. Only some of the major ones are addressed here. 27Perhaps recognizing the threat from third-party challengers, ballot access lawshave been structured to reduce competition. Theodore Lowi concluded that statebans on “fusion tickets” (the nomination of the same candidate by more than onepolitical party) have a simple objective – to eliminate competition. 28 In a similarvein, Hamilton and Ladd found that ballot structure affects turnout (particularlyfor lesser-known candidates), party-line voting, and election results in partisandistricts. 29Additionally, some states allow incumbents to have significant control in theprimary process. For example: in Virginia incumbents can demand a primary ifthey had been nominated that way the previous election cycle; Louisiana’s openseat primary system, which favors incumbents, only saw one incumbent defeated in22 years; and Connecticut requires a candidate for a party’s nomination to receiveat least 15 percent of the votes at the nominating convention to qualify for theprimary. Also, incumbents work with their state legislatures and governors toformulate redistricting plans in such a way as to protect, and possibly improve, theirchances for reelection. David Gopoian and Darrell West found that incumbentswere more likely to gain, rather than lose, from redistricting because legislaturestended to give incumbents of both parties a greater proportion of their party’svoters. 30 Not surprisingly, additional research has found that if there is a bias in theredistricting process it tends to favor the state’s dominant party. 31Passage of FECA in 1974 dramatically changed the landscape in which campaignsare funded and undertaken. The Act created a tax-return check-off forfunding presidential campaigns, placed limits on spending by presidential candidateswho accept matching funds, and limited the amounts individuals couldcontribute to presidential and congressional campaigns. (The Act also limitedspending on congressional campaigns, but the US Supreme Court later held thisprovision unconstitutional.) 32In researching the academic literature in the process of writing Monopoly Politics,I found overwhelming agreement among scholars that the major effect of the Acthas been to help incumbents further fend off challengers. (Although I have notfollowed the literature as intensely since 1999, I am aware of no further researchthat is of a contrary nature.) I also found evidence that the principal motivation forthe Act was self-interest. Peter Aranson and Melvin Hinich showed that the limitson contributions disproportionally constrain challengers more than incumbentsand thereby benefit incumbents. 33 Abrams and Settle found that the Democrats’support of the 1974 bill was based on self-interest – that in the absence of limits